After years of Sargent seats, I opted to have Rick Mayer do the seat on my GS. The reason for trying him instead of sending my stock seat to Sargent was simply that Rick offers ride-in appointements, so I could get my seat done a lot sooner, and his prices are less expensive than Sargent.

When I first arrived at Rick's, I told him that on my Sargent custom seats I always had them done to be exactly the same shape/profile as stock, but with their Atomic Supercell foam and basketweave vinyl. I had 2 sportbike seats done that way and had no problem doing Iron Butt rides on them after that.

But, I told Rick that my GS is my first non-sportbike, so I would defer to his seat judgment. He did the GS seat with basketweave vinyl, but he put a noticeable "dish" in the seat. I had him flatten it out some immediately, and then rode home. I put about 600 miles on the seat and then took it back to him to adjust (which he doesn't charge for). Basically, on the second visit, I had him, essentially, tweak it to be the way I initially described. I.e. make it as flat as possible, with his firmest foam, and still basically the same shape as stock.

I could ride on it all day the way he first did it, and, like that, it was WAAYY better than stock. But, now that he flattened it out and firmed it up some, it is even better. Now, it is totally Iron Butt-capable.

It seems that a lot of aftermarket seat companies "dish" the seats and I really don't know why anybody would want that. I guess if you're only going to ride a few hours at a time, maybe it's good. I mean, the dished shape is definitely more comfortable than any stock seat I've tried, and it *might* even be more comfortable than a flat seat - for a few hours. But, once you've been in the saddle for a few hours, it's really nice to be able to move your butt around. Forward and backwards. Maybe even to one side or the other. And that is when a dished saddle loses its appeal. If I'm going to ride all day, I want to be able to shift forward and sit like that for a while. Then shift way back and sit there. A dished seat really makes a lot of that uncomfortable.